“The Tiger Among Us” doesn’t pretend to be a play about the universal story of the immigrant. Nor does it pretend to be a universal story of the Hmong immigrant. It is, rather, an idiosyncratic story about an idiosyncratic family history, filled with decisions, regrets and consequences. Lightly dappled with surrealism, it’s a play with a deceptively small scope that attempts to speak with eloquence to larger issues. It’s not consistently successful in this regard, but shows guile and dexterity in the effort.

The setting of the play couldn’t be more humdrum, showing a Hmong family settled in the small western Minnesota town of Perham in the dead of winter. While father hasn’t fully reconciled himself to life in the U.S., his American-born children are thoroughly assimilated, with son Pao trying his best to be gangsta and daughter Lia excelling on the high school volleyball team. Playwright Lauren Yee unspools the history and the travails of this family in hints and shadows, allusions and illusions. She shows a deft hand at painting simple situations filled with complex relationships, and isn’t afraid to use humor — directed either outward at the mainstream culture or inward in self-deprecating glances.

She leans on a convenient Playwright’s Trick every once in a while (Chekov once said that you shouldn’t show a gun on stage in the first act if you don’t intend for it to be fired in the third, and a bottle of Lipitor serves the role as Chekhov’s gun in this play). But Yee shows a knowledge of place, of people and of relationships that’s admirable.

The world premiere production at Mu Performing Arts gets a sturdy staging under director Ellen Fenster, anchored by solid performances by Gaosong Vang Heu and Maxwell Chonk Thao. Thao, who plays big brother Pao, begins the play with a monologue that might be titled “Hmong for Dummies,” and — in an antic performance filled with tics and bursts of kinetic energy — quickly establishes himself as a likable, solid presence, which gives him the leeway to dive deeper as the play moves toward deeper territory.

Heu, as the volleyball star Lia, nicely brings to life the warring instincts and desires of a young woman with a foot in two worlds: Does she stay close to home for college or flee to the distance? How deep does she dig for her history, and what will she do with the information she finds?

Saikong Yang brings a bit less depth to the role of the dour, troubled father, but leavens the role with moments of humor (imagining, for instance, that the singer of “Party in the USA” is that famous Hmong pop singer Mai Lee Cyrus). The role of the enigmatic May is underdrawn, but Sheng Kong finds additional contours of anguish and heartache. Yee, the playwright, draws her Caucasian characters with less nuance still, but Claire Bancroft (as Lia’s blond buddy Delma) and Garry Geiken (in a number of small-yet-interconnected roles) are able to put muscle on the bones.

“The Tiger Among Us” isn’t a sleek and fierce beast of a play, but it has its own beauty and dignity. Time spent with these characters and this story is time well spent.

Capsule: A sturdy staging of a play of simple situations and complex relationships

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